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Inkheart
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Rating: 4.4/5 from 89 reviews Read in, read outBook Review of InkheartInkheart Chicken House, 2003, 544 pp., $19.95 Cornelia Funke ISBN: 0-689-82699-0 I wonder have you ever imagined a book's character to be real? I mean, real. So real like your friends that you hang around with. So real like an ordinary human. - Philip Kong The Book-Lovers BookThis is the story of Meggie, a girl who has been brought up on books,and loves them more than anything, except her father, whom she calls Mo. She, like everyone, has often wondered what it would be like to live in a book world, but when a book world comes to her life, it isn't as nice as you might think. Mo is called Silvertongue, because when he reads aloud, things come out of books.Sometimes the things are alive, and not very pleasant. Capricorn, a villain from the book Inkheart came to life in our world when Meggie was just a baby, and Mo has been running from him ever since. He couldn't run forever, and when Capricorn catches him, only Meggie---who might also have the silvertongue curse---can save him, with the cooperation of the slightly bonkers author of Inkheart,Fenoglio. Things end all right, but many bad things happen that can never be healed. That's what gives this book its beautiful realism. | ||||||||||||||||||||
Meggie lives with her father Mo, a bookbinder who repairs old books with crumbling spines, broken covers and bindings. Though she loves her father, Meggie is puzzled by all the unanswered questions she has, like where her mother is and why Mo suddenly makes them move without warning, as if he's trying to escape something. One night a strange man -- Dustfinger -- arrives at Meggie's house, speaks with her father, and vanishes again.
The next morning, Mo and Meggie leave again suddenly to stay with eccentric Elinor, a tough woman with an obsessive love of books. Dustfinger comes along with them -- along with a mysterious green book that is, for some reason, very valuable. Meggie finds out just how valuable when her father is kidnapped by the thugs of the evil, sadistic Capricorn -- Mo is able to bring book characters out of their books and into the real world. And Capricorn is willing to use Meggie to make Mo do exactly what he wants.
"Inkheart" lacks some of the sparkle and memorable characters of "Thief Lord." Despite this, it's a solid fantasy story that manages to transcend what sounds like a very silly storyline. Okay, reading people in (Meg's mother) and out (Capricorn and his deformed thugs) sounds absurd even in a fantasy book, but Funke manages to pull it off in believable fashion.
Funke's writing (very well translated) has a nice breadth of detail, and she gets across the personalities of the characters quite well ("Capricorn would feed the bird to the cat on purpose, just to watch it being torn apart..."). What it lacks is suspense and pacing. Funke is good at evoking mystery but not a building sense of suspense. And the book drags quite a bit near the beginning, although it picks up near the middle.
Meggie and Mo are nice but unassuming lead characters. There's really nothing that makes them stand out. Not so for Dustfinger and Elinor. Dustfinger is a tormented sometime-traitor who can't cope with living in our world, giving him a more pitiful personality. And Elinor is a take-charge, reclusive, tough book-lover whose odd behavior makes her more endearing.
"Inkheart" is a bit clumsier and draggier than Funke's first novel. But it stands as a pleasant little fantasy, especially for those who, like Meggie, adore books.